How To Get A Million Followers On Twitter

Nevertheless, Skaugen has over a million followers on Twitter and she's one of the artists that's successfully pioneering the use of social media tools to build a music career.

Skaugen is fortunate enough to have talent and good looks on her side - but Skaugen attributes her social media success to sincerity and engagement:

The power of Social Media is massive.

I suppose in the age of reality TV stars, grassroots DIY artists such as myself are the opposite end of the spectrum and refreshing to the public, especially music fans.

I am sincere and transparent with my tweets, love to chat with my followers, letting them in on what’s going on behind the scenes of the music industry from an independent artist’s perspective. It’s a two-way conversation.

I don’t have a label’s intern or digital marketing rep tweeting for me – so it’s very fluid and brutally honest. There’s no smokescreen, people and fans can see straight through some marketing dude pretending they are the artist. They can unfollow as quickly as they follow.

In addition to Twitter, Skaugen is active on Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and other social networking and social media sites. She's also holding live interactive streamed concerts that anyone can watch and comment on in real time.

Skaugen recommends getting in as early as possible with social networking sites and learning how to interact on each platform.

She also says that you have to listen to and respond to what your fans want:

Your fans are a resource of information that you can and should ask for feedback from. At a college show I did in the states once, I asked a group of kids what they want from artists now, and they said they want to feel like part of the band. I held Couch Sessions last year where fans would suggest a song for me to cover unplugged, and this was a huge success because they felt like they had some input and were listened to.

Skaugen's site prominently features links to her activity on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, iLike and Eventful.